Animated Comedy Series ‘Merrick & Treves’ From ‘Archer’ Team Lands Two-Season HBO Order

The network has ordered two seasons of half-hour series Merrick & Treves from Archer trio Adam Reed, Casey Willis and Lucky Yates.

Set inside Queen Victoria’s top secret Royal Temporal Constabulary, Merrick & Treves follows a team of unlikely heroes as they voyage back and forth through time in an effort to stop Jack the Ripper.

Joseph Merrick was better known as The Elephant Man, who was exhibited at a freak show in 19th century Britain, before he was taken in by surgeon Sir Frederick Treves and went to live at a hospital in Whitechapel. This was the neighborhood where Jack the Ripper frequented and killed many of his victims and Merrick has been considered a potential Ripper by certain sections of the internet.

Reed is the creator of FX’s Archer, Willis was an exec producer, and Yates voiced characters on the animated comedy. The trio also worked on Adult Swim’s Frisky Dingo.

They will exec produce the series, which comes from TFC Productions, the production arm of TFC Management, alongside TFC’s Joel Begleiter with Kelly Wu as co-executive producer.

Merrick & Treves marks the first animated series for HBO in a number of years; its last was Animals, created by Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano, which ran for three seasons through to 2018. Other animated shows include The Ricky Gervais Show and The Life & Times of Tim, while sister streamer HBO Max has aired animated comedies such as Ten Year Old Tom and Harley Quinn.

Amy Gravitt, EVP, HBO Programming, Head of HBO & HBO Max Comedy Series, said, “Adam, Casey, and Lucky are exceptional comedic talents whom we have admired for years. We couldn’t be more excited to team up with them to bring the wholly original Merrick & Treves to HBO audiences.”

“The three of us are beyond excited to have found a home for Merrick & Treves at HBO,” added Reed, Willis and Yates. “We can’t wait to start working with the creative team behind so many of our favorite shows. It’s actually quite daunting, now that we think about it. Like, holy sh*t, y’all. HBO.”